Democratic candidates for US Congress and the Pennsylvania State Senate appeared Wednesday evening in the community room at the Gettysburg YWCA. They included Beth Farnham, a candidate for the 13th Congressional District currently occupied by Republican John Joyce and Cameron Schroy who is running to replace State Senator Doug Mastriano in the 33rd District. The host for the evening was Gettysburg Democracy for America (DFA). Jeff Colvin, co-chair of DFA, welcomed the audience and introduced the candidates. A lively discussion with the audience of about thirty followed brief presentations by the candidates.
Beth Farnham is married with two children and has served as a school board member in the Conewago Valley School System. She began her remarks by reciting from memory a list of the twelve counties that make up the 13th Congressional District and promised the audience a quiz at the end of the evening. Her top priority, she said, is a “restoration of Congress” to it proper role in government. In a normal year, she continued, the US Congress passes some 200 separate pieces of legislation, but last year they managed only twenty-seven.
Congressman Joyce, she said, has played a role in this failure to deliver necessary legislation. “He has simply not shown up for the people of the 13th District.”
Other top issues for Farnham include support for public education, affordable access to healthcare for all, and protecting democracy and voting rights. But gun safety measures and access to reproductive healthcare are also central to her campaign. “Gun violence,” she said, “is the number one killer of Pennsylvania children. Not car accidents, not cancer. Sensible gun safety measure are essential.”
As a symbol of women’s rights and reproductive freedom Farnham held up a “pink pussy” hat, the woven cap that has been an important symbol for the women’s movement. This hat, she said, is based on the Phrygian Caps, the soft conical caps worn by patriots during the American Revolution, and is a symbol we should all considering embracing.
Cameron Schroy, a ninth grade civics teacher in Waynesboro and life-long resident of Franklin County, said is a running as a candidate concerned with real issues and finding solutions to problems facing residents of the 33rd District. His opponent Doug Mastriano, he said, “would rather yell at Josh Shapiro on Facebook Live.” As soon as he was elected as a state senator, he began running for governor. In contrast, Schroy said “I will concentrate on providing the constituent services the people of Adams and Franklin counties deserve.”
“As a ninth-grade teacher I have worked with difficult children for many years,” he continued. “I can probably work with Republicans in Harrisburg just as well.” Schroy concluded by mentioning his many ties to Adams County including a relative—Jacob Potter—listed on the Pennsylvania Monument on the Gettysburg Battlefield. “He fought that battle because Black lives matter, and we need to continue that struggle today.”
Featured Image Caption: Gettysburg DFA Co-chair Jeff Colvin, Cameron Schroy and Beth Farnham
For anyone unable to attend last night’s Gettysburg DFA meeting, here is the text of my speech.
Hello, my name is Beth Farnham and I am running for US Representative of Pennsylvania’s 13th Congressional District.
The 13th District Includes the counties of Adams, Franklin, Fulton, Bedford, Cambria, Blair, Huntingdon, Mifflin, Juniata, and Perry as well as pieces of Cumberland County and Somerset County.
If you don’t know me already, I am a resident of Adams County, a married mother of two children who attend the Conewago Valley School District where I served as a board member in the past year. My husband Rob and I have made our home in Conewago Township for over 16 years.
I have also served as a volunteer for Girl Scouts, a 5 year board member for a mothers’ group, and a Sunday school teacher in my church in Gettysburg where my husband and I are still members.
I am an elected member of the Adams County Democratic Committee for Conewago Township precinct 1 and I volunteer with grassroots groups including Gettysburg DFA, Gettysburg for Gun Sense, and Adams County Federation of Democratic women.
While I began my political career as an activist demonstrating in Women’s Marches, Black Lives Matter protests, the March for Our Lives, and I have lobbied state representatives and senators for sensible gun laws, equality, and public education initiatives, it has not been enough to make a difference. My work with grassroots groups has, while fruitful, made me realize that the most productive path to societal change is to pass effective legislation.
For this reason, I am running as a candidate for Congress to restore its function, protect our Democracy, and enshrine into law Reproductive Freedoms and Gun Safety.
Our rights to vote and to have our votes be counted are sacred.
In stark contrast to such rights, our current Representative, John Joyce, signed the Texas Amicus Brief in a blatant attempt to trash our valid electoral votes in 2020.
He objected to certifying Pennsylvania’s valid electoral votes on January 7, 2021, refused to impeach former president and accused criminal Donald Trump for his words and misdeeds on January 6, 2021, and never condemned the violence of Trump’s insurrectionists.
It is imperative that members of Congress honor their oaths to the Constitution, not only in the spirit of creating a more perfect union, but also to carry out its regular work.
A regular Congress annually passes around 200 bills that are signed into law, but last year, our gridlocked Congress only passed 27.
In a functioning Democracy, not only do we have the right to vote, but we have agency over our own bodies.
To deprive us of such a fundamental right is to, again, relegate us to second-class citizenship.
No one should come between us and the healthcare decisions which don’t affect public health that we make with licensed medical professionals.
Healthcare decisions, especially concerning our Reproductive Freedom like: access to abortion, birth control, and gender-affirming care, are PRIVATE.
They should be legal in all states and protected by privacy laws, but in many states, the strong arm of the law violates some of the most personal decisions a person can make and prevents pregnant people from terminating unwanted or unsafe pregnancies, or gender-diverse people from pursuing gender-affirming care.
While the third point of my campaign speech is Gun Safety, it is in this space that I must note the intersection of Democracy and Women’s Rights.
Frequently crossing each other throughout history they are equally entwined in this year’s pivotal election.
An easy way to understand this is through the symbolism of this hat. Many of you may know it as a Pink Pussy Hat, a symbol of the Women’s Marches when Trump first took office in January 2017.
What you may not know is that this hat is a type of Phrygian cap. First worn by ancient Greeks, a soft knitted or felt hat became the headgear of the manumitted by the Romans who often had enslaved Greeks.
As a symbol of liberty, Brutus and his fellow senators wore it to reestablish their Republic after overthrowing Caesar’s dictatorship.
More importantly, American Revolutionaries wore it in the fight to throw off the rule of the British monarchy, which they did.
You can now find Phrygian caps on the seal of the U.S. Senate and the reverse side of the Seal of Pennsylvania, just to name a few.
When women wore these symbols of Liberty in our marches, we were not just predicting a loss of access to abortion, birth control, and gender-affirming care, we were predicting a furthering of second class citizenship.
In typical Trump fashion, he exposed norms on which our vulnerable Democracy depended and denied this half of the population our equality in January 2020 when the state of Virginia became the 38th state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment which states, “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”
The Equal Rights Amendment, destined to become the 28th Amendment to our Constitution protects not only access to abortion and gender-affirming care, but also equal pay and it defends against discrimination on the basis of sex for not only women, but members of the LGBTQIA+ community much more clearly than the 14th Amendment does.
With many legal scholars and over 80 equal rights organizations arguing that the deadlines for such ratification from the 1970’s and 80’s were always invalid due to their being part of the act’s preamble and not the amendment itself, the Trump administration’s action to block publication of the new Constitution incorporating the 28th Amendment, coupled with the recent overturning of Roe vs. Wade, meant that the very lives of women and girls have been put at tremendous risk in the many states where the right to abortion has been considerably constrained.
It is my belief that not only should we vote for President Joe Biden and Democrats like myself down the ballot, but we should also persuade President Biden to demand the archivist do their job and publish the new Constitution so that the lawsuits regarding the right to abortion that constitute discrimination on the basis of sex can come before the Supreme Court.
When the Supreme Court upholds the 28th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, it not only upholds Women’s Rights and therefore Reproductive Freedom, it defends Democracy as our Revolutionary, Phrygian cap-wearing Founders intended.
In addition to Reproductive Freedom, I believe in the Right to Life…of our living, breathing children whose leading cause of death in The United States is gun violence.
Not car accidents, not cancer, but gun violence.
No one deserves the swift and deadly bloodshed that murderers armed with guns perpetrate in schools, shopping malls, movie theaters, houses of worship, grocery stores, yoga studios, nail salons, concerts, university campuses, military bases, workplaces, and homes, smearing floors with blood and brain matter, but most especially, our children don’t deserve it.
Even the late Justice Scalia wrote in the majority opinion of the Heller decision, “Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited…. [It is] not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.”
As a member of Congress, I would work to enact Gun Safety legislation such as safe storage of guns, reporting of lost/stolen guns, universal background checks, and extreme risk protection orders.
Please vote for me, Beth Farnham as your Representative in Congress because I will protect your right to vote, uphold the Equal Rights Amendment, and advance gun safety legislation in order that we All may thrive.
When you choose Beth Farnham…you CHOOSE DEMOCRACY.
Thank you.